Tuesday, May 03, 2005

When molesters lose, everyone wins

From MSNBC.com: "Spurred by the killing of a 9-year-old girl, Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday signed a law imposing tougher penalties on child molesters and requiring many of those released from prison to wear satellite tracking devices for the rest of their lives. The measure gives Florida one of the toughest child-sex laws in the nation. The Jessica Lunsford Act was quickly drafted after Jessica’s death was discovered in March and was pushed through by lawmakers outraged that the man accused of killing her was a registered sex offender. It passed both the Senate and House unanimously.

It establishes a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life behind bars for people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 11 and younger, with lifetime tracking by global positioning satellite technology after they are freed. Until the new law goes into effect Sept. 1, molesting a child under 12 is punishable in most cases by up to 30 years in prison." Story . . . [Mark Godsey]

I like the huge mandatory sentence. You always hear stories about these creepy animals going to jail for short amounts of time. Hopefully there is no "time off for good behavior" with this mandatory sentence. The whole reason you're in jail is because you didn't have good behavior!

What also drives me crazy is that of all the crimes one can commit, child molestation is the most indicative of an irreversible mental defect, yet many times they are just back out among the populace as if they shoplifted a CD. These people cannot be rehabilitated, only prevented from committing the crime. It's not like they see the errors of their ways. So, I'm all for huge sentences, satellite tracking, and whatever else we can do to confound them.

If I had my way, they'd all have to move to their own little island, away from decent folk. Ah well...

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

This is gonna be a little out of character for me, but here goes nothing. There was a case in Florida over the weekend of May 7th, involving a wheelchair-bound ex-child molester. 15 years ago he molested the six year old daughter of his caretaker. He served about a year and a half in jail and was released. He since had been seeing a psychiatrist and was always open with new people he met about his sorted history. Well, after the recent events in Florida, a private citizen took it upon themselves to post fliers all over the neighborhood where this guy lived. Not being of a perfectly sound mind, the guy committed suicide. Now I am 100% percent for any effort to document, track, or list for the public the names and addresses of these disgusting criminals. Go Jeb! However, concerned citizens need to be responsible with how they deal with these situations. A few, most likely a very few, of these offenders will never be heard from again. This is why I call for a little maturity from the general public. Be in possession of all the facts before you choose to destroy the life of another citizen of the United States. For more on this story: http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/05/08/sections/nation_world/nation/article_511689.php